The Green Issue

[errantember]

This is a brief but excellent article by Michael Polan, author of The Botany of Desire, The Omnivore's Dilemma, and, most recently, In Defense of Food. It's about the whole global warming/climate change/peak oil/expensive gas dilemma that most Americans are finally being forced to face when they refuel their SUVs. Polan's work, particularly The Omnivore's Dilemma, has led to a fundamental shift in the way I eat, live, and garden. You don't have to read his work, but if you do, you will be changed forever.

Comments

[errantember.livejournal.com]

The problem is all the great people living on the *north* side. :)

[terriblelynne.livejournal.com]

The problem is the inherent suckiness of Cap Metro. Worst public transit anywhere I've lived, and anywhere with this size population I've ever even visited.

[errantember.livejournal.com]

Evidently Cap Metro, while better than nothing, doesn't win any awards for being a good general transportation solution. Maybe with rising oil prices public transportation will get more funding in Austin.

[terriblelynne.livejournal.com]

The thing is, funding isn't so much the problem as what appears to me as a nearly complete lack of understanding of what people need public transit to do. I'm not sure about now but I know that when I moved here, the hugeness of Cap Metro's budget was made quite the point of, and it's just not good enough. It's not just that service needs expanding, it's stuff like how running buses 15-20 minutes apart during rush hour is simply unacceptable, and the fact that the schedules are laid out with no respect whatsoever to riders needing to transfer in a timely fashion. That sort of thing. So, it's like, there are already people getting paid to do sort of what needs to be done, and the issue is much more, IMO, that they don't know what to do or why it needs doing. I've not seen where they've ever consulted with a public transit official or commissioner from a larger city where, um, people actually take public transit and it actually works, either, and I think that'd be the best thing they could do, just to start with. My feeling about the train, considering the inherent problems with Cap Metro as it is, is "oh great! So we'll have yet another mode of transportation that doesn't actually solve anything!" Cynical, I know, but as someone who's used the transit here for as long as I have, I can't help but be.